Elaine here. Spike's peanut-gallery comments are in RED.

So me and Spike went to Tofino again. For them who ain't been there or heard of it, it's a little hamlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, wherein there is much surf and staring out across the vast expanse of the "sPecific Ocean". The wind howls, and all the trees near the beach are stunted and bend sharply east ('cause Toronto sucks, goes the West Coast adage).

Anyhow, for those diehards who can stand vacation pictures, here's our little travelogue. If you're dying to see the bigger picture, merely click on the dang thumbnail that's imbedded in this text and a close-up will pop up for your edification.

Day 1

Spike got pneumonia a week afore we left, and so I wouldn't let her drive or do anything or carry much except her bottle of pills. Her doctor reluctantly released her as fit to ... well... travel if it was non-strenuous. I made her nap in the back seat while we were sitting in the ferry line-up.

**This is me napping... I had plenty of time to nap on account of a ferry catching on fire earlier that day, which caused a bit of a backlog in ferry traffic, so we waited, I think, 5 hours for the ferry. It was all fine, though we got a little ahead of ourselves in our reading schedule and had to make an extra pitstop in Nanaimo to reload in bookland. How terrible is that?**

The drive up was specktackle-r -- as it always is. When we got tired of driving, we would get out and I'd leap nimbly around the van a few times to get the blood flowing.

Except when we saw the bear. No matter how cute he was, we weren't getting out to pet him.
(**Nor could I convince Elaine to let me feed him donuts through the van window, a habit made popular by tourists in Banff. I conceded, mostly because we didn't have any donuts, and also because I'd like to think we are both just a titch smarter than yer average Banff tourist.**)

The trips we make are always punctuated with a great deal of pulling over and going "wow" at scenery and such. The sunset was Very Good.

Day 2 and 3

When we're at Tofino, we do nuthin'. That's the point.

We have no phone, no pagers, no computers, no internet, we talk to no other human if we can help it (**except each other**), and we bring lots of good books.
We have no schedule, we simply soak in the tub-with-jets, eat good food, nap, have sex, nap, talk, laugh, hang out (and Spike naps a lot, did I mention?) (**Spike spends a bit of time in the horizontal hold position, though full nappage is not always achieved**) and -- oh yeah -- sometimes we even walk on the beach.

This time we took my kite. Spike's not an experienced kite flyer, so I had to explain that it's not usually as easy to get it up in the air as this.

The wind was strong enough to make it hard to keep the thing on the ground.

I gave Spike a turn flying the kite -- though dashing about was not allowed, due to the recent p-new-moan-ia.

**an odd by-product of the n-ammonia is that I have turned into an extra high octane klutz lately. Over the last couple of weeks, anything that will respond to gravity is at risk of hitting the floorboards in my presence.
Unfortunately, Elaine asked me to take some pictures with the digital camera, and, well...
gravity sucks, eh?
Consequently, you are treated to fewer pictures than you might have otherwise enjoyed.
Dang!**

Day 4

How shocked you must be to see pictures of us walking on the beach. Again.

The cloud formations were bloody amazin'.

We've spared you most of the pictures, really we have.
**No small thanks to Spike's butterfinger problem**

Here's three final pics, taken at the ferry terminal, as we wait (and wait and wait) to come home.

Imagine a gathering thunderstorm, 'cause that's what we drove back into.

Another cheerful getaway!

**Right! Hey, honey, go get your date book, it's time to plan our next vacation!**

Back to SpikeHarris.Com: The Blog...